In September 2015, Neil deGrasse Tysoninterviewed Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who revealed the mass spying program(s) used across the globe by multiple intelligence agencies, private governments, and more. His revelations had broad and immediate consequences for both the elite they exposed and the now-informed public, who, prior to the leaks, considered government surveillance a conspiracy theory. Leaks continue to expose government surveillance and the tools/technology they use via Snowden and other whistleblowers, document platforms like Wikileaks, and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). As a result, distrust in our governments is at an-all time high, and on a global scale.

All of these leaks have brought the existence of Special Access Programs (SAPs) and Unacknowledged SAPs into the public consciousness. These are programs run by what's become known as "The Deep State," or a government within the government, which has also been discussed by multiple political insiders and academics,.

Here is one out of many examples we've used many times:

Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.

From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. (source)

To see more quotes like this, you can check out this article. And to learn more about the Black Budget, you can read this one that goes more in-depth.

Modern Day Education

In the interview, Snowden offers his views on education, which align closely with our own here at CE:

It's a question of who teaches the untaught? Knowledge has to arise from somewhere. There has to be a fountainhead from which it flows. That can't be a classroom because the teachers themselves had to learn it from somewhere. Original research, the scientific method, the pursuit of the unknown, and the questioning of accepted conventional wisdom and probing at the unknowns. The fact that the most interesting thing for someone who's interested in how knowledge is created are the problems that haven't been solved. It's not what do we know. It's what we don't know.